Draqua's pad

“…Tony Fleecs’ Botcon-exclusive variant cover for “My Little Pony Micro Series” #5 featuring Pinkie Pie. In an unprecedented crossover between Hasbro’s “Transformers” and “My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic,” Pinkie Pie cosplays as Optimus Prime, dancing on the massive hand of the Big Bot himself, as he gives a quizzical tilt of his head. The variant cover will be available at this year’s Transformers Botcon in San Diego from June 27 - 30. The regular issue of “My Little Pony Micro Series” #5 written by Ted Anderson with interiors by Ben Bates hits stores June 26.”

Well… That’s just Pie

(Source: comicbookresources.com)

You know you make me wanna (Shout!)
Kick my heels up and (Shout!)
Throw my hands up and (Shout!)
Throw my head back and (Shout!)
Come on now

greyliliy:

See here for full size!

I decided to have Celestia and Twilight reenact one of my favorite scenes from Tron: Uprising. Why? Because I could. And it seemed to fit them. PARALLELS!

Also just because, the rest of the Tron: Uprising cast as ponies:

Cadence as Cyrus
Luna as CLU2
Discord as Dyson
OC Ponies as the ISOs
Lauren Faust Pony as Kevin Flynn aka The User
Lyra as Tesler
Octavia as Paige
Trixie, The Great and Powerful as Pavel
Fluttershy as Zed
Rainbow Dash as Mara
Rarity as Link
Zecora as Able
Pinkie Pie as Bartik
Applejack as Hopper
and
Shining Armor as Cutler

It’s eerie how well this works… And how I read the whole thing in Twilight’s and Celestia’s voices…

shazzbaa:

obfuscobble:

draqua:

*MADE REBLOGGABLE BY REQUEST*

Sure!

Overall, I really enjoyed the season 3 finale, certainly infinitely more than the S3 opener. The songs were excellent, the animation beautiful, energetic, and haunting in some places. While very compact, it managed to set up a pretty extreme conflict and pay it off reasonably well. All characters were present with their fundamental attributes on full display, while keeping the focus where it needed to be: on Twilight Sparkle.

“Magical Mystery Cure” still falls slightly below “Royal Wedding”, but that’s to be expected given that it’s apparently more of a prelude to the S4 opening 2-parter rather than a stand alone piece.

[apple sauce]

Now, as for our new purple Princess…

Like at least a handful of other people, I had been casually predicting Twilight’s accession to Alicorn-hood waaaaay back since S1 in “The Cutie Mark Chronicles”. Seriously, young Twilight turns others in cacti, grows a dragon to adult size, and gains the Ava-pony State? Celestia singles the kid out for personalized training? Yeah… she was a cut above from the get go. To me, there was always the implication that Celestia had bigger plans for Twilight, or that Twilight was meant for more than levitating oranges and sorting books. Did I assume her becoming a princess was an absolute certainty? No. But I did think it would probably happen in some way, shape, or form at some point in the show’s course. It just seemed reasonable.

However, I always expected this whole transformation to be the grand finale of the show overall, something to end Friendship is Magic off on… And it seems in fact that this is going to be a permanent change throughout the next two confirmed seasons of the show. Well, I also didn’t expect FiM to go on for that long. So there you go.

The big concern is, at least for me: will the friendly dynamic of the cast still work now that Twilight has a much higher literal and symbolic power level over her buddies? And there’s really no way of predicting this, we’ll simply have to watch S4 to find out. Maybe there will be some hiccups along the way, maybe the show just won’t be as good; if that’s the case, we as critical viewers will just have to accept that and deal with it as it comes.

However, I for one welcome our new Librarian Overlord! Partly because Transformers, and other merchandise driven franchises have made me used to and even made me anticipate changes like this… but for another reason too.

See, Twilight really needed to change. She needed a new angle or dimension to her character badly this season. In S1, Twilight was introduced as the audience surrogate. She was a young and naive new comer to Ponyville, eager to learn everything about her new surroundings and social contacts. We, as the viewer, learned about the world and the characters along side with her. We became well acquainted with the personalities of the Mane Five and the lore of Equestria. We saw Twilight learn about her friends, social situations, and how to cope.

But by S2, Twilight hit a bit of a rut in terms of development. She was no longer a fresh-faced everypony. She’d formed strong bonds with her friends and learned a great deal about her town. Furthermore, the audience no longer needed her to explain concepts about the world or characters to them; hence why S2 introduced the notion of everyone being able to send Princess Celestia a letter. But this also meant Twilight lost her importance as the main character, had less to do, and little room for development. She was already a whiz at friendship and maintaining said friendships… so now what’s her role?

In S2, you couldn’t have plots like “Winter Wrap Up” and “Boast Busters” wherein Twilight’s desire for acceptance while being out of her depth provided conflict/growth; because now she knows better. It seems like they tried to play up her obsessive and easily stressed traits like in “Lesson Zero” and “It’s About Time”, but with mixed results. One of the reasons I like “Royal Wedding” so much is how it added new dimension to Twilight by focusing on her relationships with Shining Armour and Cadence while also introducing those new characters.

But, in S3, we’re given with the concept that Twilight is entering a new and important stage of her training. We see Celestia giving larger tasks to Twilight, and we see Twilight practicing stronger and stronger magic consistently throughout the season. It’s very effective foreshadowing while also giving her something to work for and do throughout the series besides being a Stresserella. And now, as a princess, she’s accomplished this goal and also been given another interesting new facet about herself and her role in the show to explore!

Finally, I see this whole “Twilight the Alicorn” thing as part of a larger theme of all the Mane Six unlocking their true potential as adults. Getting progressively closer to archiving their true life goals or at least coming very close to them. The big examples of this for S3 are really Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash. In “Wonderbolt Academy”, Dash took a major step closer to her dream of becoming a Wonderbolt, something which had been set up since episode 1 of season 1. But, she then made the very mature decision that she held her personal values and ethics to a greater degree of importance than her childhood dream, and she could make sacrifices if necessary.

Fluttershy had a great instance of intermingling kindness, assertiveness, and bravery in “Keep Calm and Flutter On” when it is her, and only her, who is able to teach Discord the importance of friendship. She was finally able to fully express the power her kindness have, and the effect it could have on others, without allowing her shyness to handicap her efforts. In episode 1 of season 1, Fluttershy couldn’t even introduce herself properly to the newly arrived Twilight Sparkle, and now she’s BFFs with the damned Lord of Chaos! Remember, it’s Discord who goes through an arc in KCaFO; the episode just pays off Fluttershy’s arc.

Hopefully this trend will continue in further seasons, and we’ll see Rarity, Apple Jack, and Pinkie Pie do some major self-actualizing. But, only time will tell…

Anyways, this has gone on for far longer than I intended. But basically, I’m on-board for Alicorn Twilight, provided the show keeps being entertaining.

(Thanks for making this rebloggable!)

THANK YOU very much agree with a lot of these thoughts, must reblog.

(I have very different feelings on the Wedding episode — to me the Wedding two-parter was a great episode but not a great PONY episode — it didn’t hit the spirit of the show as closely as this finale did, because of reasons. But that’s a minor point. I also actually liked Twilight’s control-freaking as a character trait, because I think anyone who really, really identifies with her — a smart, talented girl who tends not to make friends because of her dedication to her work and her need for organisation and control — is going to run into and have to deal with those pressures, and I like that it was addressed in her; Lesson Zero is my actual literal favourite episode.

But what was really cool was to see Twilight starting to grow past that in the penultimate episode. It was like her constant fretting was the last obstacle before she could reach this point. Seeing her move in a new direction will be really exciting, and despite my being disheartened with some of S3, I loved the finale and I’m quite intrigued about what will happen from here! I’m THRILLED that they weren’t afraid to make a big change like this and then actually follow through and examine what happens after that big change. I really kinda hope that lot of the bronies who are afraid of this because it is different, because it changes the dynamic of the Mane 6, can learn along with Twilight that things can change, and that can be okay.)

Very interesting points!

Given that you brought up the “stressed Twilight arc”, I should add as a footnote that I really like the bits in “Game Ponies Play” wherein Cadence taught Twilight a relaxing-breathe technique, which Twilight then used to keep calm during the increasingly wacky events of the episode. It was a good bit of a character trait subtly paying off and showing the specific sort of mentor relationship Cadence has with Twilight. I really appreciated that.

This is still an unfortunately mediocre episode, but I really liked Cadence in it. She came across as very human and real, which were elements I had felt were missing from her character in past appearances

Anyways, it really comes back to this whole theme S3 had of committing to keeping Twilight growing and maturing. It worked with flaws or shortcomings she had established in the last two seasons and worked her through them, culminating in Alicorn-hood. Awesome stuff.

Still, S4 better have… like… seven Rarity episodes!

*MADE REBLOGGABLE BY REQUEST*

Sure!

Overall, I really enjoyed the season 3 finale, certainly infinitely more than the S3 opener. The songs were excellent, the animation beautiful, energetic, and haunting in some places. While very compact, it managed to set up a pretty extreme conflict and pay it off reasonably well. All characters were present with their fundamental attributes on full display, while keeping the focus where it needed to be: on Twilight Sparkle.

“Magical Mystery Cure” still falls slightly below “Royal Wedding”, but that’s to be expected given that it’s apparently more of a prelude to the S4 opening 2-parter rather than a stand alone piece.

[apple sauce]

Now, as for our new purple Princess…

Like at least a handful of other people, I had been casually predicting Twilight’s accession to Alicorn-hood waaaaay back since S1 in “The Cutie Mark Chronicles”. Seriously, young Twilight turns others in cacti, grows a dragon to adult size, and gains the Ava-pony State? Celestia singles the kid out for personalized training? Yeah… she was a cut above from the get go. To me, there was always the implication that Celestia had bigger plans for Twilight, or that Twilight was meant for more than levitating oranges and sorting books. Did I assume her becoming a princess was an absolute certainty? No. But I did think it would probably happen in some way, shape, or form at some point in the show’s course. It just seemed reasonable.

However, I always expected this whole transformation to be the grand finale of the show overall, something to end Friendship is Magic off on… And it seems in fact that this is going to be a permanent change throughout the next two confirmed seasons of the show. Well, I also didn’t expect FiM to go on for that long. So there you go.

The big concern is, at least for me: will the friendly dynamic of the cast still work now that Twilight has a much higher literal and symbolic power level over her buddies? And there’s really no way of predicting this, we’ll simply have to watch S4 to find out. Maybe there will be some hiccups along the way, maybe the show just won’t be as good; if that’s the case, we as critical viewers will just have to accept that and deal with it as it comes.

However, I for one welcome our new Librarian Overlord! Partly because Transformers, and other merchandise driven franchises have made me used to and even made me anticipate changes like this… but for another reason too.

See, Twilight really needed to change. She needed a new angle or dimension to her character badly this season. In S1, Twilight was introduced as the audience surrogate. She was a young and naive new comer to Ponyville, eager to learn everything about her new surroundings and social contacts. We, as the viewer, learned about the world and the characters along side with her. We became well acquainted with the personalities of the Mane Five and the lore of Equestria. We saw Twilight learn about her friends, social situations, and how to cope.

But by S2, Twilight hit a bit of a rut in terms of development. She was no longer a fresh-faced everypony. She’d formed strong bonds with her friends and learned a great deal about her town. Furthermore, the audience no longer needed her to explain concepts about the world or characters to them; hence why S2 introduced the notion of everyone being able to send Princess Celestia a letter. But this also meant Twilight lost her importance as the main character, had less to do, and little room for development. She was already a whiz at friendship and maintaining said friendships… so now what’s her role?

In S2, you couldn’t have plots like “Winter Wrap Up” and “Boast Busters” wherein Twilight’s desire for acceptance while being out of her depth provided conflict/growth; because now she knows better. It seems like they tried to play up her obsessive and easily stressed traits like in “Lesson Zero” and “It’s About Time”, but with mixed results. One of the reasons I like “Royal Wedding” so much is how it added new dimension to Twilight by focusing on her relationships with Shining Armour and Cadence while also introducing those new characters.

But, in S3, we’re given with the concept that Twilight is entering a new and important stage of her training. We see Celestia giving larger tasks to Twilight, and we see Twilight practicing stronger and stronger magic consistently throughout the season. It’s very effective foreshadowing while also giving her something to work for and do throughout the series besides being a Stresserella. And now, as a princess, she’s accomplished this goal and also been given another interesting new facet about herself and her role in the show to explore!

Finally, I see this whole “Twilight the Alicorn” thing as part of a larger theme of all the Mane Six unlocking their true potential as adults. Getting progressively closer to archiving their true life goals or at least coming very close to them. The big examples of this for S3 are really Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash. In “Wonderbolt Academy”, Dash took a major step closer to her dream of becoming a Wonderbolt, something which had been set up since episode 1 of season 1. But, she then made the very mature decision that she held her personal values and ethics to a greater degree of importance than her childhood dream, and she could make sacrifices if necessary.

Fluttershy had a great instance of intermingling kindness, assertiveness, and bravery in “Keep Calm and Flutter On” when it is her, and only her, who is able to teach Discord the importance of friendship. She was finally able to fully express the power her kindness have, and the effect it could have on others, without allowing her shyness to handicap her efforts. In episode 1 of season 1, Fluttershy couldn’t even introduce herself properly to the newly arrived Twilight Sparkle, and now she’s BFFs with the damned Lord of Chaos! Remember, it’s Discord who goes through an arc in KCaFO; the episode just pays off Fluttershy’s arc.

Hopefully this trend will continue in further seasons, and we’ll see Rarity, Apple Jack, and Pinkie Pie do some major self-actualizing. But, only time will tell…

Anyways, this has gone on for far longer than I intended. But basically, I’m on-board for Alicorn Twilight, provided the show keeps being entertaining.

*MADE REBLOGGABLE BY REQUEST*

You gotta watch out for them librarians, man… One minute they’re stamping your return card, the next BAM! They’ve saved the galaxy!

In all seriousness though, I don’t think it’s coincidental. I think they’re both very recent examples of The Unlikely Hero archetype. The humble beginning specifically being leading one’s life in a library or archive hall; a repository of knowledge but removed from the real world. Upon their Call to Adventure, they move out into the real world to make contact with real people, get involved in real conflicts/important decisions, and then use the knowledge they’d gain from their earlier years to help re-shape the real world world. They have to stop dealing with reality through the interface of recorded media and experience it first hand. Also, they go beyond what they’d learned in books to make their own statements about the world, history, and people… Eventually, they have books written about them…

Librarians dude…